Tag Archives: customer service

Local Yarn Shop Day 2023

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4/29/2023 Saturday

Today we started the day with coffee on the porch. The water birds are returning to the lake. We had lots of water birds flying in this morning and we love keeping track of the birds we see. This morning we saw several pairs of Hooded Mergansers and we heard Canada Geese and Loons. The lake is alive again.

When you’re in the knitting business, and you work in an independent yarn shop, Local Yarn Shop Day is a big deal. LYS day is an opportunity to celebrate the small, family-owned brick and mortar shops. I read somewhere today that there were as many as 10,000 local yarn shops ten (twenty?) years ago and there are only 1,000 remaining.

Many of the shops remaining have gone to online only. Big box stores can buy in huge numbers thus making prices lower and they typically carry only commercial yarns that are inexpensive. LYSs carries some inexpensive yarns, too, but your LYS has value well beyond the big box or online stores and it’s high time we start singing their praises.

Your LYS may charge a little bit more but they employ local families who live near you and may have children in the schools, they eat in restaurants, they go to doctors and they pay taxes. The people who own and work in your LYS are “your people.”

Your LYS employees are ready, willing and able to offer you pattern support, help you with knitting/crocheting problems, help you match a yarn to a pattern or even find a pattern that is within your ability. Your LYS staff loves yarn and they’re a great resource for fiber lovers. They’ve likely tried the needles that you need to buy, they know how the yarns knit up, they understand why some yarns aren’t a good idea for that colorwork pattern and they love to talk about yarn!

A LYS will stand behind the products that they sell. When I lived in Florida I didn’t have a LYS and I ordered some needles online. What a mess. I’ll never do it again. The person selling the needles wouldn’t take them back despite an inaccurate listing. I was stuck with them. That’s a mistake I don’t need to make twice. Local Yarn shops will often take broken needles back because they know their suppliers will also stand behind their products. Try that at a big box craft store.

Your LYS will help you find the right needles and accessories for your project. Are you knitting a child’s cardigan or a lace shawl? Do you have arthritis? Did you know that square needles are better for you? Those of us who work in a LYS know lots of tips and tricks to make your knitting or crocheting or weaving or rug hooking a better experience.

Will you pay a little bit more for your yarn at your LYS? Yup. Small businesses can’t possibly compete with big box stores. But your LYS will learn your name and say “hello” and be happy to see you when you come in. They’ll special order yarn for you. They’ll also check to make sure that the yarn you’re buying is from the same dye lot.

Local Yarn Shops are very special places where communities are built and I hope that if you need to purchase yarn that you’ll consider buying at a brick and mortar store. The remaining brick and mortar stores need your business.

Gone knitting.

A No Good Very Bad Day

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It’s not often that I am immobilized by life. I’m typically a very happy, upbeat person. Today started off that way. Coffee with my sweet husband, the love of my life. We woke up to six or more inches of snow and when he was out snowblowing the driveway, I got a call from Atlanta; the office of the president of UPS (What can Brown do for you?).

I emailed him last night when I was furious because my package … the one that I had been waiting for, patiently, for over two weeks … was “confirmed” to be delivered at my front door and it wasn’t there. Nor was it a mile away at my mailbox. Last night I spent 47 minutes on hold with UPS 800 Customer Service. When rep answered, she sounded as if she had been woken up by my phone call. She wasn’t very customer-service-oriented and the experience put me over the top. I emailed the president of UPS to share my five-year-long challenge with the local arm of his business and the apparent mess that is the Waterville, Maine UPS shipping center.

Anyway, supposedly they’re working on getting to the bottom of the problem. The corporate office could see where the truck went yesterday but they couldn’t figure out where the driver left my package. I was told that a claim had been sent to Amazon to pay for them to reship the order to me … turns out miss-asleep-at-the-wheel emailed that to me. Another managerial problem, in my humble opinion. I also think that the drivers working in Maine should have vehicles that can drive in the snow on camp roads (here in Maine we have dirt roads otherwise known as camp roads).

After the phone call, I was feeling pleased with myself and (finally) heard. So, I went to the kitchen to make blueberry muffins for my husband as his “reward” for snowplowing. We had a second cup of coffee and a muffin together but they didn’t taste quite right … into the trash after I realized that I had added baking SODA not powder.

Sweet, toothless Lola.

My Lola, my 14-year-old Shitzu, isn’t eating well. Often won’t eat at all. Sometimes will eat if I hand feed her. But she’s not drinking water either which is maybe even more troublesome. Today is one of those days. She won’t eat and I’m very, very worried! I adore this dog and even thinking about a world without her in it makes me cry. (Those of you who know me know that I tend to have a problem with ocular incontinence even on good days and as you know, today wasn’t a good day.) I hope my brother the veterinarian will call me and have some suggestions.

We did leave campus briefly today and that did help. Husband ran errands while wife sat in the truck. At least I got some fresh air and a change of scenery. But I find that it’s now 5pm and I haven’t done diddly. Squat. Nada. Zip. Zero. Zillch. I was going to sew face masks.

For today I’m giving up and giving in. I’m going to turn on the television, stream my Arne and Carlos podcast for today (i’m already two days behind and it’s only Tuesday!) When it’s cocktail time, I’ll have a strong one and hope that UPS finds my package and it’s a better day tomorrow.

Thanks for listening.

Gone knitting.

Breakfast

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a typical breakfast at home ...This photo is a breakfast I was presented with here at home … lucky me, right?

As you may or may not have read, we’re remodeling a house and it’s kitchen time. So, this morning when we found out that the dry wall guys were not coming today to mud and tape, we decided to go out to breakfast at a new place (well, new to us!) down the street – Pickles NY Deli.

We walked in and were greeted nicely and offered one of three options at the front desk … ham and egg or bacon and egg sandwich or bagel. We were handed a couple of coffee cups (paper) and “allowed” to serve ourselves. Our sandwiches were brought to our table by the same woman who took our order but with latex-gloved hands (not very appealing to a customer in a restaurant!) N’s ham and egg had deli-sliced (thin, thin, thin!) ham and my bacon and egg sandwich had the thinnest bacon (I’m guessing microwaved) I’ve ever seen. Both had orange (American?) cheese. Ya know, you’re open for breakfast and I’m wondering why… it doesn’t seem that  there was commitment to serving customers beyond having unlocked the doors and because, maybe, they had to be there to make food for a catering event.

We probably won’t go back – and you’re in our neighborhood!

A few other nails in the coffin: no table service (although lunch appears to be different, waiter and waitress came in as we ate), coffee refills were offered by the aforementioned waiter with an untucked shirt, waitress/order taker took one glove off to ring up the cash register (and appeared to be thinking of putting them back on!) and she argued with me when I said the coffee pump/dispenser was empty. I was right. She complained about having had to brew coffee all morning due to a couple of cater-outs … I’d say in this economy, that’s a nice problem to have! They were out of creamers and she offered us a gallon jug (mostly empty) of milk with which we could lighten our coffee. Lame.

Do we accept mediocrity too readily? If my customer service is ever that poor, I sure hope someone says something to me to knock me out of my reverie! Thank goodness for places like First Watch where it’s consistently consistent – fresh, friendly and dependable is a really good thing.